[365] Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1885), p. 414.
[366] This festival was probably of Babylonian origin. It was associated with astronomical phenomena—with the seven planets of ancient astronomy and with the phases of the moon.
[367] The feast of Purim is another transformed festival; “Babylonian in origin, it was given a Jewish dress and became incorporated into the system of Jewish observances” (David Philipson, The Reform Movement in Judaism (1907), p. 3).
[368] Thus the festival of Dionysus, which “in its origin was a mere burst of primitive animal spirits, is transmuted into a complex and beautiful work of art” (Dickinson, The Greek View of Life, p. 14).
[369] Deut. vi. 14.
[370] Montefiori, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion (1892), p. 197.
[371] Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1885), p. 402. Renan speaks of Deuteronomy in the same strain: “This Thora was the worst enemy of the universal religion which the prophets of the eighth century had in their dreams” (History of the People of Israel (1891), vol. iii, p. 175).
[372] Cf. Chapter XVI. The persecutions of the medieval Church were largely the outcome of this legislation which made the extermination of God’s enemies, that is, idolators and misbelievers, a pious duty. “The terrible Directorium Inquisitorum of Nicholas Eymeric follows Deuteronomy word for word” (Renan, History of the people of Israel (1891), vol. iii, p. 179).
[373] Deut. xx. 16.
[374] Ibid. vii. 2.